Aero: Alysa Halsey – Costa Rica 2016 – Learning the Language

Creative Commons Image via The LEAF Project

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Traveling out of the country is one of the best experiences I believe a young person can have. Living in a place other than the comfort of my home was frightening enough, and when I add in the fact that I couldn’t speak Spanish fluently, it was a nightmare of mine. However, these feelings were occurring before I left for the trip. As soon as I got there, all of my feelings that weren’t positive, diminished from my mind. I found it rather reasonable to communicate with the ticos and ticas of Costa Rica not because of my Spanish speaking abilities, but through all of the other ways to communicate with a human being. Of course, before the trip I tried to cram in as much Spanish as I could remember and memorized the words and phrases in the book, but knowing the words and speaking a language are two completely different things. This, they didn’t teach me in my high school Spanish classes.

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Alysa Halsey

Living in Costa Rica and speaking their language was a personal growth step that I wanted to take in my life. I thought it was all about learning the words and mastering conjunctions, but I have now learned that there is so much more to the Spanish language that is taught in a class room. The language also includes body language, gestures, and facial expressions, just like the English language does. I realized that I needed to stop stressing out so much about the words and to use other forms of communication that I knew and have developed throughout my past experiences. I tried my best with the linguistic, but I tried even harder to use the other skills I had. I don’t think the ticos and ticas actually cared if we knew the language well or not, I think they just appreciated seeing that effort was given to truly learn and love their culture.

In the future, I would love to travel more and I plan on it. This trip gave me a lot of insight on traveling but also assured me that I don’t have to speak a fluent language to go somewhere. That no matter where I go in this world, there will always be people who are caring and accepting, no matter the language.

Alysa Halsey
LEAF Contributor
ML@FLCC: Costa Rica 2016

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